By Zhang Liang, Research Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC

Research Report, No.296, 2021 (Total 6361) 2021-10-13

Abstract: The development of the “time bank”, with the mechanism of “time for time and service for service, saving time at young age to exchange service at old age”，is a good exploration to promote the integrated development of mutual aid and volunteer services for the elderly. It has positive meanings in many aspects and large room for development. Many areas in China have carried out fruitful exploration in establishing “time bank” and made remarkable progress. However, there are also problems such as the lack of support by authoritative system, unclear organizational management form, imperfect service standards including credits measurement and exchange mechanism, quality evaluation and supervision, difficulty in gaining trust and recognition in deferred payment, as well as slow development of IT application system. Policy options are raised as follows. We need to strengthen the development of management system and establish a unified and government-led management and operation mechanism; we need to continuously improve service specification and standards such as credits measurement and exchange mechanism, quality evaluation and supervision; we need to try our best to remove the participants’ worries about deferred payment through government participation to enhance credibility and improvement of the credits exchange mechanism; and we need to explore the establishment of a more complete and higher-level IT application system of “time bank” in a gradual and progressive manner.

Keywords: time bank, mutual aid for the aged, volunteer service, policy options